Afraid Of The Dark

As a child, the darkness represented the monsters in the world. I remember hiding under the covers at night because my mind decided that if I couldn’t see them, they couldn’t see me either. It made perfect sense to me.

As I grew up, the darkness came to mean something different to me.

Sometimes the darkness meant incredible sadness that would roll in quietly, like a wall of fog, surrounding and enveloping me within it.

Other times, when the darkness was near, it meant that the world would soon go very still, and I would be lost and completely alone in it.

But most times it represented this huge empty void of nothingness to me, so dark that I could not find my way, that perhaps I would never find the light.

Over time we begin to see the darkness differently and instead of fearing it, we begin to rejoice in the incredible color painting across the sky announcing its arrival.

Maybe we simply learned to trust that dawn always follows even the darkest moments…

P.S. A special shout out to all my friends who are participating in day five of the V7N 30 Day Blog Challenge. I know you can do it!

The dark night of the soul. When the darkness seems overwhelming, suffocating and the panic starts to rise – that’s the moment to take the breath, trust in yourself in your Universe and in God or whatever name you want to use. To realise that you need to move through the dark to find the delicious, new light coming out the other side. Thank you for this post Cricket.

A beautiful post Cricket. The part about hiding under the covers reminds me of my son. When he was little and didn’t want me to see him doing something he wasn’t supposed to be doing, he would close his eyes. He thought that if he couldn’t see me, I couldn’t see him. He was too cute to really punish then. At 17, he still tries to get away with that sometimes – just to be cute. He’s not so cute when he does it now.

Your photos are absolutely gorgeous! I love sunrises and sunsets. Last night, the kids and I were in the car when the sun started to set and it cast the most beautiful orange light on the tops of the trees that it looked like someone had thrown orange, glowing paint on them or covered them in gold so that they would shine. My unobservant kids pointed it out to me – I knew it had to really be special for them to point it out. They always make fun of me for going on and on about how beautiful everything is in nature.

These pictures reminded me of the fun we had last night trying to get pictures of the view before it was gone. I wish we could freeze those moments.

I used to be afraid of the dark as well. As a child I had a huge white teddy bear… at night I’d pull him over me as I drifted off to sleep. He was my protector. Even as a grown man fears of the dark would slip in. A year or so ago I confronted that fear… as I looked into the darkness, I found it wasn’t haunted by frightening things… it was filled with the Spirit of God.. (your choice of words may be different). I think this applies to those dark moments that visit our souls as well. You write so eloquently and openly Cricket…..

A wise old man once told me.. “The dark brings what the light hides”. I was like 10 years old talking about how scared of the dark I was to a group of farmers having coffee one morning. I started looking at the shadows of the day so I would know what was there in the dark.